JP3279124B2 - Video display device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video display apparatus for processing data relating to the broadcast contents of a program and presenting a program table of a television or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information on a program such as a television has been superimposed on broadcast contents and broadcasted, and the receiver uses the information to select a program to be viewed or to make a reservation for recording and recording. Various technologies have been developed.

[0003] For example, there is a method in which information on program contents is transmitted during vertical blanking, reconstructed on the receiver side, and presented in the form of a program guide. Has established. Since the transmission path is not wide enough, it takes several minutes to several hours to finish transmitting all information even if the information to be transmitted is limited to the start and end times of the program and the title of the program. For this reason, the receiver is generally provided with a memory capable of storing all information to be transmitted, and when displaying, a necessary part is extracted from the content stored in the memory and used. If the total capacity of the information is not large, it is realistic to provide sufficient memory.

[0004] In recent years, with the background of digital technology and high-speed communication technology, CATV and satellite broadcasting have been used in which a plurality of programs are multiplexed in a digital stream on a high-speed transmission path and simultaneously transmitted to provide a multi-channel program. Has emerged in the form of Since video and audio are converted into digital signals and multiplexed and transmitted through a transmission path having a wide band, a large amount of additional information can be multiplexed and transmitted. In another field, there is a technology for providing a service similar to the above, including a communication path and a receiver dedicated to program information in order to facilitate a user to select a multi-channel broadcast by various broadcast media. Has been pioneered. Using a high-speed communication path, the entire program information is repeatedly transmitted at a period of several seconds to several minutes, and by receiving this, the receiver generates a program table.

[0005] In such application fields, in addition to the broadcast time and title, a detailed description of the contents of the program, information on casts and producers, information on the broadcast mode of the program, and still images and short moving images are used. There is a possibility that a large amount of data composed of an introduction to the touch of a program is used. On the receiver side, this information is processed as appropriate, and reconfigured into a program table having two axes, time and channel, so that users can easily understand it, and dialogue through the presented program table is performed. Thus, it is possible to easily make a program viewing or recording reservation.

[0006]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional configuration, the information to be transmitted over many channels and long time periods cannot be displayed all at the same time. Select and display.
Further, in the above-described conventional configuration, generally, information to be transmitted is assumed to be repeatedly transmitted with a fixed time period. However, when the transmission period is long, for example, when it reaches several minutes or several hours, all information is transmitted. It must be stored in the receiver's memory. If the user obtains information every time a different channel or time zone is specified, the user will have to wait for the length of the information transmission cycle.

On the other hand, when the program information is transmitted at a period faster than a certain period, all information is not always stored, but information in a necessary range is obtained according to the operation of the user. However, the required storage capacity can be reduced.
However, even in this case, since the program information is acquired after the user's designation, it is inevitable that a waiting time is generated according to the transmission cycle of the program information.

As described above, when the transmission cycle of the program information is as short as several seconds or less, the method of storing all the program information in the storage means of the receiver and the necessary method according to the operation of the user are required. Although it is possible to select either of the methods for acquiring the part, the former has a disadvantage that a large amount of storage capacity is required, and the latter has a disadvantage that a waiting time occurs depending on the transmission cycle of the program information. is there.

It is an object of the present invention to solve this trade-off and to provide a video display device which realizes a response time which does not burden a user by utilizing a small storage capacity.

[0010]

In order to achieve this object, the present invention has the following arrangement.

In the first configuration, program information storage means capable of storing at least a plurality of screens of program information,
Data management means for storing received program information in the program information storage means, and program table generation means for obtaining information from the program information storage means via the data management means to create a program guide display; Then, the next display page is predicted from the current display request page, and the program information of the predicted page is selected from the input data and stored in the program information storage means.

In the second configuration, program information storage means capable of storing program information for at least a plurality of screens,
Data management means for storing received program information in the program information storage means, and program table generation means for obtaining information from the program information storage means via the data management means to create a program guide display; Is configured to store program information in a simplified format for the entire program information, and to store detailed program information in a range for which a display request has been made. When not selected, the display is based on the simplified program information, and when the detailed program information is selected, the detailed display is performed.

[0013]

According to the first configuration, the area of the program table where the user's display request is likely to be generated by cooperation between the program table generating means and the data management means, and the range in which the display request is always predicted. It operates to obtain the information of. Thus, when the user views the display of the program guide in a certain area for a certain period of time or more and then requests display of an area adjacent in time or above and below the channel, necessary information is stored in advance in the program information storage means. As a result, the program guide of the requested area can be presented immediately using this information. Further, since the storage area for storing the program information does not need to store the program information of the entire program table, the storage capacity can be reduced.

In the second configuration, the program information in the simplified form is generated for the program information over the entire area by the operation of the data management means, and stored in the program information storage means as simplified data. When a display request is made for a certain area of the program guide, a simplified version of the program guide can be generated and displayed using the simplified data immediately. Further, detailed information is acquired in the background when a display request is issued, and when it is acquired, the display is changed to a detailed display. As a result, users can quickly obtain simple information with a short waiting time, and because the detailed information is prepared while watching the simplified program guide, users may feel the stress caused by the waiting time. Can be obtained without.

[0015]

【Example】

(Embodiment 1) A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a first embodiment of a program guide presentation apparatus according to the present invention. Although the present embodiment describes an example of a receiving terminal capable of receiving a program given as digital data via a high-speed data stream such as satellite communication or a cable and providing a multi-channel service, the present invention is not limited to this. Is not something that can be done. In the present embodiment, a service for multiplexing and transmitting data such as the title, content, and broadcast time of a current or future program to a data stream of the program content is assumed, and a program guide presentation device using this program information data is assumed. One configuration is described.

In the figure, input terminal 1 is multiplexed with information on a future program of a plurality of channels which can be selected by a receiver together with audio / video data constituting the program itself and supplied as a high-speed bit stream.
The demultiplexing means 2 separates the multiplexed stream supplied to the input terminal 1 and outputs respective streams of audio data, video data and service information data. 1
When a plurality of programs are included in one input stream, the selection is performed by the demultiplexing means 2. In general, a receiver selects and receives a plurality of input streams,
Although a means for selecting a large number of programs is provided, since it is not directly related to the content of the present invention, it is omitted here. The streams of the program contents separated by the demultiplexing means 2 are supplied to an audio decoder 3 and a video decoder 4, respectively. These two decoders process the data stream supplied from the demultiplexing means 2 and output an audio or video signal. The output terminal 9 outputs an audio or video signal representing the content of the selected program.
In this embodiment, only the output to the output terminal is described, but a configuration in which a speaker and a monitor television are integrated may be employed.

A data stream of program information, which is another output of the demultiplexing means, is supplied to a data management means 5. The data management means 5 cooperates with the program guide generation means 7 to perform management for selectively storing necessary program information data in the program information storage means 6. The program guide generation means 7 uses the information stored in the program information storage means 6 via the data management means 5 and processes the information to generate a display image of the program guide in a form easy for the user to understand. I do. The display image of this program table is displayed by the synthesizing unit 8.
Is superimposed on or switched with the screen output from the video decoder 4, and is displayed on a display device connected to the output terminal 9.

Next, a format of program information used in the present invention and a display example of a program table will be described with reference to FIG. Fig. 2 (a)
As shown in (1), the program guide spreads over a two-dimensional matrix composed of the axis of the channel or broadcast station and the axis of time, and displays the contents of the program at a position determined by the channel and time frame. Since the range of the program information to be provided generally exceeds the limit of the display capability in both the channel direction and the time direction, a part of the whole is cut out and displayed as shown in FIG. 2 (b). FIG. 2C shows an example of program information provided for one program. As shown in the figure, the program information is provided in the form of text data, and the program broadcast channel, start time and end time,
It consists of a program title, a description of the program contents, an audio mode and other additional information.

As already pointed out, since the entire program information is enormous, a large amount of memory is required to store the entire program information in the storage device of the receiver. On the other hand, in the method of acquiring a necessary portion every time there is a display request, a waiting time is generated depending on the transmission cycle of the program information. In order to solve this problem, in this embodiment, the display range is predicted in advance before the display request is issued, and the program information is pre-read, thereby reducing the capacity of the storage device and shortening the reaction time. The point is. Hereinafter, the term “display range” indicates a discretely divided area, and the display request range is determined by selecting the discretized unit. However, the display range is divided into a plurality of ranges, and each unit is divided. By performing the same processing for each time, it is possible to realize continuous movement of the area without major changes.

The prediction of the display range is performed as follows. As shown in FIG. 3, a case where the display range changes from the position A to the position B in the drawing will be described as an example. At this time, since it is considered that there is a high possibility of moving in the same direction as the previous movement, a higher priority is assigned to the previous moving direction, and a lower priority is assigned to the opposite direction and the orthogonal direction. Here, a coefficient of 2 is assigned in the same direction as the previous movement, and a coefficient of 3 is assigned in the other directions, and a value obtained by multiplying the movement amount by the coefficient is set as a priority index of each area. An area having a lower index is an area where data is preferentially acquired. When the number of areas that can be stored in the program information storage means is 6, six areas surrounded by dotted lines in the figure are set as areas from which program information is to be obtained.

In order to specifically show the relation between the processing of creating a program table and the acquisition of program information, the contents of the processing will be described below with reference to flowcharts shown in FIGS. Since the entire process is performed in parallel for each processing unit, the flow of the process for each processing unit is shown instead of the flow of the entire process. In FIG.
9 shows a flow of processing that is performed when a program guide generating unit receives a display request for a program guide. S101 indicates the start of the program guide display processing. This process is started when a user requests display of a program guide, when the user instructs to change a channel or a time zone to be displayed at the time of presenting a program guide, and receives a data acquisition completion signal from the data management means. Fired when. The range to be displayed is the one already specified elsewhere. At the beginning of the process, an inquiry is made to the data management means in S102 to notify that the display request range has been changed and to confirm whether the display request range is stored in the program information storage means. If the information necessary for display is already in the program information storage means, the information is obtained from this, and a display of the program guide is generated in S104. For the process of constructing a program guide from program information,
Since a conventional technique can be used, it will not be described in detail here. If the necessary program information is not stored in the program information storage means, it is necessary to newly obtain the necessary program information from the input stream. Therefore, an acquisition request is issued to the data management means in S105. As will be described later, the data management means issues a data acquisition completion signal to the program guide display task again when the necessary information is available, so that the display can be performed immediately when the required information is available. After performing either the process of S104 or S105, the process ends, and the process is passed to another task until a process request is issued again.

Next, the flow of processing of the data management means, which is the main point of this embodiment, will be described with reference to FIG.
S201 shows the flow of processing that is steadily performed in response to the input stream of the data management processing. The start of this processing occurs when a stream of program information is supplied from the demultiplexing means. In S202, it is determined whether there is any information to be stored in the program information storage means according to a predetermined criterion. If the information is to be stored, the data is shaped and stored in the program information storage means in S203. If not necessary, the process ends.
After storing the new information, it is determined in S204 whether or not the data required for the program guide display processing has been completely stored in the program information storage means. Informs the program guide display processing that the data is ready.

The criterion for judging whether or not the information is the necessary information performed in the above processing is determined in the processing from S211 onward. This processing is also the processing of the data management means, but occurs when the display request range of the program guide is changed. In S212, the range for which a display request has been made is reflected in the criterion in S204. Next, in S213, a future display designated range is predicted based on the movement of the display request range based on the above-described determination criteria, and the priority is calculated. In S214, an area from which information is to be obtained is determined according to the priority and the total storage capacity. In step S215, a part to be invalidated among the currently stored program information is determined, and a required storage area is secured. Finally, in step S216, the result of the area to be obtained calculated in step S214 is reflected in the criterion used in step S202 to determine whether to store the image.

With the above arrangement, the data management means predicts the next moving direction during the display of the program guide and performs processing for acquiring information necessary for displaying the next screen, thereby enabling the user to perform the next processing. When the operation of moving to the screen is performed, information necessary for the display can be accumulated with high accuracy. By pre-reading information by using the time while viewing one screen of the program guide, the waiting time when the display request screen is changed can be reduced. On the other hand, the information to be stored in the receiver is limited to a part of the entire program guide information around the currently displayed area, and the capacity of the prepared storage area can be reduced.

(Embodiment 2) Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. This embodiment also aims to solve the same problem as in the first embodiment, but does not divide the program information by region and restricts the region to be obtained, but restricts the contents of the entire program information. The difference is that the simplified program information is stored. Since the outline of the configuration of this embodiment is also common to that of the first embodiment, the description is omitted.

In this embodiment, since the simplified program information is stored in the entire area, the data management unit has a function of converting the input program information into a simplified format. When the input program information is composed of, for example, (start time, end time, program title, description text of program contents, audio mode), in a simplified form, (start time, end time,
(Simplified program title). Since the description text of the program contents occupies a large part in the original information, the amount of data can be significantly reduced by omitting it. Based on this, the following operation modes can be realized. If there is detailed data at the time of the program guide display request, the entire program title is displayed, additional information on the program is also displayed, and a description of each program can be presented upon request. Even if there is no detailed data, a simplified display based on the simplified data is immediately performed by the simplified data, the acquisition of the detailed data of the display request range is advanced, and when the data is completed, the display is rewritten to the display based on the detailed data, Present a program guide without giving users substantial waiting time.

To simplify the title, there is a method of selecting the designated number of characters from the beginning. However, by including the abbreviated title in the program information supplied in advance, it is possible to obtain a more easily comprehensible title. it can. For this purpose, there can be used a method of providing two separate fields and a method of describing the entire title name including an abbreviated name using an escape code or the like.

In order to specifically show the relation between the processing of creating a program table and the acquisition of program information, the contents of the processing will be described below with reference to flowcharts shown in FIGS. Since the entire process is performed in parallel for each processing unit, the flow of the process for each processing unit is shown instead of the flow of the entire process. In FIG.
9 shows a flow of processing that is performed when a program guide generating unit receives a display request for a program guide. S301 indicates the start of the program guide display processing. This processing is started when the user requests display of the program guide, when the user instructs to change the channel or time zone to be displayed when the program guide is presented, and when the data management means completes the acquisition of the display range data. Occurs when a signal is received. The range to be displayed is the one already specified elsewhere. In the processing, first, in S302, an inquiry is made to the data management means to confirm whether or not the detailed data of the display request range is stored in the program information storage means. If the information necessary for the detailed display is already in the program information storage means, the information is obtained from this, and S3
At 03, a display of a program guide based on the detailed data is generated.
The processing for composing the program guide from the program information can be performed using a conventional technique, and thus will not be described in detail here.
In the display using the detailed data, it is possible to display the form of the program title without abbreviation, and it is possible to present a description about the contents of the program in response to a user request.
If it is determined in step S302 that there is no detailed information of the requested range in the program information storage unit, a request is made to the data management unit to acquire detailed data in the requested range in step S304. Is stored in the program information storage means. S30 if there is accumulation
In step 6, the display of the program guide is generated using the simplified data accumulated for the entire range. This simplified data includes information on the shortened program title and the start and end times, and is sufficient to generate a display with a simplified title description similar to the display with the detailed data. After any display generation, this processing ends.

Next, the processing flow of the data management means of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. S401 shows the flow of processing that is performed steadily in response to the input stream of the data management processing. The start of this processing occurs when a stream of program information is supplied from the demultiplexing means. In S202, it is determined whether or not the currently supplied data is within the required display range according to a predetermined required display range. If it is included in the display range, the data is shaped in S403 and then stored in the program information storage means. In S404, it is determined whether or not the detailed data required in the program guide display processing has been completely stored in the program information storage means. If it is confirmed that the necessary detailed data is available, the data is sent to the program guide display processing in S405. Notify that is complete. On the other hand, S402
If the condition is not satisfied in step S4, that is, if the currently supplied data is not in the required display range,
In step S407, data in a simplified format is created, and in step S407, the data is stored in the program information storage unit. In step S408, it is determined whether or not the data in the simplified format has been prepared for the entire area. If the data has been prepared, it is notified in step S409 that the data in the simplified form has been prepared for the program guide display processing.

The criterion for the filtering process in S402 is determined by the processes from S411. This processing is also the processing of the data management means, but occurs when the display request range of the program guide is changed. In S412, the display request range is reflected in the determination criterion in S402. Then, in order to secure a storage area of the program information storage means, in S413, information in a range in which detailed information need not be stored is invalidated, and a required storage area is secured.

With the above configuration, the data management means always stores simplified program information for the entire range in the program information storage means, so that the user can request the display range to be moved. Whenever there is, a simplified program guide can be displayed immediately. Furthermore, if the same display range is presented for a certain period of time, detailed information is acquired during that time, so that a detailed program guide can be obtained. Since the user can view the simplified program guide even during the waiting time, the waiting time is not a burden. On the other hand, the information that must be stored in the receiver is the information of the currently displayed area of the entire program guide information,
Since the information is limited to the simple information of the whole, the capacity of the prepared storage area can be reduced.

The effects of the two embodiments described above can be further enhanced by realizing them in combination at the same time. That is, in the second embodiment, the detailed information has been described as being acquired only in the area for which the current display is requested. However, as in the first embodiment, the capacity capable of storing the detailed information for a plurality of areas is provided. And a configuration in which the detailed information is read in advance based on the prediction of the display area is possible.

[0034]

As described above, according to the first configuration of the present invention, the cooperation of the data management means and the program guide generation means enables the display of the program guide in which the user's display request will be generated. The effect of estimating the area and acquiring the information of the range in which the display request is always expected is obtained. Thus, when the user views the display of the program guide in a certain area for a certain period of time or more and then requests display of an area adjacent in time or above and below the channel, necessary information is stored in advance in the program information storage means. As a result, the program guide of the requested area can be presented immediately using this information. Further, since the storage area for storing the program information does not need to store the program information of the entire program table, the storage capacity can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to configure a video display device capable of effectively utilizing a small memory capacity and presenting a requested program guide area with a short waiting time.

According to the second configuration of the present invention, the data management means generates program information in a simplified format for the program information over the entire area and stores it in the program information storage means as simplified data. When a display request is made for a certain area of the program guide, a simplified version of the program guide can be generated and displayed using the simplified data immediately. Further, detailed information is acquired in the background when a display request is issued, and when it is acquired, the display is changed to a detailed display. As a result, users can quickly obtain simple information with a short waiting time, and because the detailed information is prepared while watching the simplified program guide, users may feel the stress caused by the waiting time. Can be obtained without. According to the second configuration, similarly to the first configuration, a video display device capable of effectively utilizing a small memory capacity and presenting a requested program guide area with a short waiting time is configured. Is possible.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data structure of a program table and program information according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a priority of program information acquisition in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a flow of a program guide creation process according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a flow of a program guide data acquisition process according to the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a flow of a program guide creation process according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a flow of program guide data acquisition processing according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Input terminal 2 Demultiplexing means 3 Audio decoder 4 Video decoder 5 Data management means 6 Program information storage means 7 Program table generation means 8 Synthesis means 9 Output terminal

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A video display device capable of displaying program information on a display means, comprising: a program information storage means capable of storing at least a plurality of display ranges of program information which can be displayed on a screen of the display means; A data management unit for storing a necessary range from the received program information in the program information storage unit; and a program table for obtaining information from the program information storage unit via the data management unit and displaying the information on the display unit. A program table generating means, wherein the data management means has a display range which is the same as the channel number and is continuous in the direction of the broadcast time with respect to a display range currently displayed on the display means in the received program information. or broadcast time is to be stored in the program information storage means to select the display range that is continuous with the same direction of a channel number from the program information to the received The video display device according to symptoms. 2. An image display device capable of displaying program information on a display means, comprising: a program information storage means capable of storing at least a plurality of display ranges of program information which can be displayed on a screen of the display means; A data management unit for storing a necessary range from the received program information in the program information storage unit; and a program table for obtaining information from the program information storage unit via the data management unit and displaying the information on the display unit. A program table generating unit, wherein the data management unit is currently displayed on the display unit in the received program information.
Displayed in the same channel number and continuous in the broadcast time direction for the display range
Range or broadcast time is the same and channel number direction
From the received program information.
Stored in the program information storage means, and further converts the simplified program information obtained by converting the program information into a simplified format.
Stored in the program information storage unit, the program table generating means, according to the simplified program information when the program information that is not converted into the abbreviated format, not available from immediately the program information storage unit after matching the display request When the program information is obtained, it is converted to a simplified format.
A video display device characterized in that display is performed by using no program information . Wherein the simplified program information is information and simplified program titles relating to the start and end time of the program, the program information is not omitted in addition to the information the program information includes titles and program content 3. The video display device according to claim 2, wherein the video display device includes additional information for explanation.